Job Discussion Forums

[Mikhai]

Hi,

I am considering a move to Taiwan from Korea. I currently work at a Korean University plus I do morning Kindy work. Right now I am clearing around 3.4 million won a month. I am looking into taking a public school position with IACC. THe position ends daily at 4 pm, is it easy to find another part time job. Is it illegal in Taiwan? Are the penalties severe? Does anyone have any information on IACC? Is Taiwan easier to get imported foods (ie. Doritos, Colby Cheese, Cream Cheese, Beef, Mangos) than Korea and at a more affordable price? Any help would be appreciated. I just dont want to get into a sticky situation like I was in at my Korean Hogwon.

[Northwood]

[Northwood]

I have just taken a look at the IACC web site. www.iacc.com.tw/aboutus.htm

The pay looks VERY low. Shockingly low.

I got this info from their web site:

Teachers with Bachelors Degree and/or TESOL
Max 160 work hours per month (mixture of teaching and admin)
Salary is approx NT$60,000 per month (assuming you get your attendance bonus)
= NT$375 per hour

Eh......NT$375 for working in a state school

I strongly advise you to look at other options.

[Dr_Zoidberg]

I, too, considered coming to Taiwan on an IACC contract. It used to be on their website. At that time they demanded a substantial chunk of your pay (24 000NT) each month as a "deposit". Oooooh, but don't worry, you'll get it back. Ummmm....yeah

READ THE CONTRACT FIRST! And don't go with any recruiter, or school, that demands deposits, or insists on taking some of your pay whatever the reason.

Remember, a reputable recruiter does little more than introduce the teacher to the school..

[Aristotle]

[Northwood]

[clark.w.griswald]

Unless you are a qualified teacher back home then you cannot legally work within the government school system in Taiwan. Even then a lot of the positions offered in the government school system here are illegal.

The central government (Ministry of Education) has a program of placing qualified teachers into some government schools. Not all schools qualify. IACC is one of the agencies that the government uses for teacher recruitment for this program. However you need to be sure that any placement they give you is within one of the schools that is included in the central government's program, and not a school that IACC or local governments tack onto that program as these would not be legal positions. I recommed that you contact the central MOE to see if you can get information upon which schools are included within their program.

As for IACC they have a very bad reputation and I would consider other alternatives if I were you.

[jamesallan]

I could offer a list of ex-iacc teacher's e-mail addresses who would advise you to consider joining the Talaban b4 signing a contract with Joshua ( owner ) from IACC

Thieves would be too kind a word!


Good luck

Do go to Taiwan it is an experience worth trying.

[Aristotle]

[stumpy]

I�ve worked ESL in S. Korea and Taiwan.
I started ESL teaching in S. Korea. I worked for a corporation based in Taejeon and mainly taught college, university and some language school classes for 2years. Although the classes were generally OK to do and the lifestyle OK, I was glad to leave when I came to Taiwan. Upon reflection, I�ve got to say, the social behavior, ethical and moral differences I found between Koreans and say Westerners, really threw me over the period of that time, and I felt I was never really felt comfortable there. This is coming from a person that had previously traveled extensively in more than 40 countries in continuity over several years- the point being, I�d been around before I went to S. Korea. And was pretty much dumbfounded by their behavior.
Moving on � After surveying Taiwan- a 3 week trip on vacation from Korea , I moved to Taiwan and have been living here for the past 6 years. The last 4 years I�ve been working through IACC. Yes, I have been contracted to them for 4 years and will talk of them in a minute.
Firstly, I�d like to point out the difference in attitude to work between working in Korea and Taiwan. Please excuse the generalities. In S Korea, as you know, in most cases, you�re practically owned by whoever supplies your working visa. In Taiwan they�re a lot more flexible, to the point of, almost anything goes if there�s money it.
I�ve read a lot of bad press about IACC, but I must say I�ve never experienced it . The monthly salary is not high, true, but you do get a stable work environment. The first two years I was in Taiwan, I spent running around Taipei, perhaps teaching kindergarten in the morning, business classes around lunchtime, buxiban classes in the afternoon, adult classes in the evening( and all the possible combinations and permutations in the name of the almighty dollar). My ARC (visa and work permit), or in other words the legal paperwork necessary for living and working in Taiwan , was attained through teaching some adult classes in the evenings and some also in the morning. If your organized and lucky enough to get jobs that will not conflict and are stable, you can make good money e.g more than NT$100 000/ month (as I did-and I�m no �super teacher�). At no time was I not paid what was owed, although I must say that more often than I would have liked , I have been lied to about one thing or another. A premium consideration with regards to the down side of this type of work is that you�ll need a lot of energy and you�ll need to be able sustain that high level as long you want to keep that work. More often than not, the times overlap; there are cancellations; there�s dissatisfaction relayed usually by parents or adult students , (but not directly to you, or in time for you do anything about it) and you�re out on your ear before you know it; government crack downs (which means you�ll get a warning to leave the building before the troops roll up- a rare event as it is); or most commonly false promises of hours offered in order to get you working for them during the key, core, most highly demanded times (and frequently the best paid hours).
An advantage of working with IACC is that you avoid all that hassle. You will get paid on time (in 4 years I only didn�t get paid on time, once. I always received the yearly bonuses in full, including the deposits they asked for (kind of like a ransom not to leave during the year long contract). Also, there�s the tax benefit. Each year I have gotten/received a lot of my tax back. You�ll read about the 20% tax for the first 6 months blah, blah, blah� but in reality you�ll get most of it back. Forget the technicalities of the tax department. Let�s just say that honesty is a relative here, The employers typically leading the way, it almost seems, upon their own onus. The number of class hours depends on the school you go to. I taught about 20 hrs/week , on average. One HS school I worked for, the hours were 9:30am-5:30pm, the other 8am �4:30pm. In both cases I found that I had a lot of free time during the day, after the initial period of adapting to the required work load. Extra private classes during those daytime hours was possible, but difficult to implement, mainly due to lack of suitable study space (of course outside the school). Unless, of course, your teaching the principal�s cousins, in which case , even your class schedule can( and was) altered to accommodate those fortunately blessed half pints! Again, if you want to work extra hours, the smart business move by IACC would be to line up those hours for you. However I�ve found that this would be very unlikely , as once they�ve got you signed, they will help you, but not very efficiently or timely. Besides, why ask them ? It really is standard practice here to get the work for yourself- Big Brother is NOT watching., nor are IACC particularly interested . If I was to generalize (Yes, I know I shouldn�t, but �) Taiwanese are business oriented people that don�t like confrontation of any sort,. They�re looking for the quick, fast buck and typically aren�t interested any further than that, despite the BS front that�s presented to you. This doesn�t apply to everyone, but sadly, more than you�d care to meet-especially in the ESL business.
Again, in general, Koreans don�t have a problem with confrontation and there�s that �I am Korean, I love Korea, and Korean things are best.� mantra which drove me crazy. Sorry, I�m digressing - Unlike in Korea, you can, if you keep your mouth shut, take on extra part-time jobs, just don�t advertise it. Yes, I know you can do it in Korea too, but it always seemed a risk- here it�s commonplace. So many foreigners I�ve met say the thing they like the most about Taiwan is that �Anything goes�. To a certain extent this is true, but you�ve got to be smart (more like use common sense) about it. Maximize your options, minimize the conflicts, but don�t stray too far away from morals or values- or you�ll lose yourself. Enough of that����
Food: it�s one of my favorite topics. If your based in or near one of the big cities (Taipei and Kaoshiung) you can buy the following in items in the following stores:
Welcome Supermarket (they�re all over the place, even in the not so big cities): Doritos,;
beef (relatively expensive compared to the market, but guaranteed);
saltine crackers and in a select few (usually closer to Taipei city centers) baked beans, canned asparagus, canned beetroot, canned kidney beans, canned black olives;
Jason�s supermarket all of the above and more- English crumpets, vegemite (if you�re an Aussie),a variety of cheeses including Colby, NZ Cheddar, Cracker barrel, Brie, Camembert as well as that plastic orange crap that passes for cheese in a lot of Asian stores
Tesco supermarket English sausages
Cosco they sell stuff in bulk, which means you�ll be buying a kg or 2 at a time for cheese and meat. This store is probably the best for getting western products- trouble is you need membership, approx NT$1200/ year.
It has most of the above and some more �BBQ Chicken, spare ribs, pizza, tacos, burritos , real mineral water, cakes, donuts.
Mangos 7D are the best brand of dried mangoes. They come from the Philippines and can be found in one of the Filipino stores (there�s one or two upstairs in the Taipei Main Train station) By the way you can also find some Indonesian stores there, one selling Gadung Garums- the clove cigarettes.
I would like to say that if you choose a post not in Taipei or Kaoshuing , you probably won�t get easy access to this stuff, as was the case when I lived in Taejon, Korea. I used to relish the opportunities to catch the train up to Seoul where some Western restaurants apply their trade.
Taiwan has a much larger international community than S Korea, especially in the big cities mentioned.
Taipei has many American, European (German, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish, Greek), Japanese, Thai, Filipino, some Vietnamese and last but not least Australian restaurants. Access to these places was a definite bonus when moving here, 6 years ago.
Some of these restaurants are expensive (TGIF), some not. Japanese and Filipino restaurants are relatively the best deals due to two facts-1 there is a large Filipino community here working mainly as house maids, nannies and laborers ; 2 the Japanese colonized this country for awhile (similar to their time in Korea, but without the racial prejudices ).
To sum up IACC are OK. They will pay you. I didn�t like the �withheld money bit� they put in the contract, but I always got it back. They are not much use for support though-there�s no money in it short term for them, I assume -hope you are getting the gist of how it works here-cruel but fair-that�s life huh?
Anyway, I�m starting to ramble. Hope this info will give you greater insight, &/ or perhaps it can easy your worries. Good luck!

[clark.w.griswald]

Stumpy thanks for the post and for bringing another dimension to what is often a one sided discussion about IACC.

Of course it is true that no matter how bad a company is there will always be some people that will have good experiences. What it seems to come down to for me is problems. When you do run into a problem then how helpful is that school or recruitment company in helping you to resolve this problem. IACC have a reputation for being tough and taking the hard line even when they are clearly in the wrong, and this indicates that they are not the sort of company that you want to be working for when you encounter a problem.

[stumpy]

Who said anything about Government schools?

Beware of sitting too high on the throne!

It ain't healthy.

[clark.w.griswald]

[colin]

Q What is the difference between IACC and the Taiwanese mafia?
A Not a hell of a lot.

STAY AWAY!